Exclusive: 'Today, knowledge is a liability... re-skill yourself' - Dr. Bhaskar Das, Group CEO - News, Zee News Cluster

“You can’t carry the baggage of experience… Today, knowledge, experience is a liability,” said Dr. Das in a conversation with Akhil Shahani, Managing Director, Centre for Management (CFM) at Ignite 2013, CFM’s annual festival on innovation. Always one to turn accepted theories on their head, Dr. Das underlined the importance of reassessing one’s contribution to an organization and constantly picking up new skills that help you better understand the dynamics of consumer behaviour. In the video, he says, “One root to learning is deep observing, deep listening and the use of social sciences – anthropology, sociology, psychology etc. – to decode a variety of nuggets in the environment.”

Dr. Das also referred to ‘a trust famine’ experienced in the corporate world today, which makes employees with a strong sense of ethics extremely valuable. “In a trust famine society, the new world order will not be perfect competition, it will be an oligopoly of trust,” said Dr. Das, mentioning the ‘triple bottom-line’ that should guide every executive decision, namely its ethical outcome for one’s own self, for one’s surroundings and for society at large.

Echoing the views of Ratan Kesh, Senior VP, Customer Service, HDFC Bank, Dr. Das said the time has come where employees with an entrepreneurial mindset and exceptional skills will be retained in organizations. “A new world order will come – and perhaps it has arrived – where there will be more work and less jobs,” he said.

For someone who’s kept his finger on the pulse of consumers for several decades now, we had to ask Dr. Das, what do consumers really want? His answer was delightfully simple. “They are constantly giving the message – ‘make my life simpler, entertaining, be a trusted navigator’. The basic principle remains the same – think of the customer in his new circumstances of life.”

Watch the video to also hear Dr. Das talk about the new protocols of brand management where the consumer, thanks to digital media, has the power to make or break a company’s fortunes. “In a one-to-many ecosystem, a silent customer is a happy customer. Today, the customer is no longer silent. Managing in this world order is extremely difficult because you don’t know where your enemies or friends are.”